


Ruptured System

by 221brothermine



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark fic, F/M, Freudian Elements, One-Sided Attraction, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-29 10:03:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13924833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221brothermine/pseuds/221brothermine
Summary: She is one more thing that Ren has and Hux wants.





	Ruptured System

“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.”   
― Sun Tzu,  _The Art of War_

 

**Chapter 1**

 

Fifteen minutes into the meeting, Hux regretted skipping his morning cup of coffee. He always had it black, two sugars. A droid delivered a tray every morning, along with some prepackaged biscuits. The biscuits were the same ones they served the stormtroopers in the mess halls on the lower levels of the Star Destroyer. Two dry, hard, oval-shaped cakes, cinnamon-flavored, with brown sugar sprinkled on top. One would think the First Order could afford to serve their generals something more tasteful, Hux thought. He knew, from the weekly meetings with the financial department, that they could not. The biscuits were all he could stomach so early in the day. He knew if he consumed any other crude matter they offered in the morning, it would resurface on the table of whatever meeting room he had to be present in that day to oversee the affairs of his Supreme Leader.

This was an emergency meeting, and Hux had skipped his breakfast all together on account of urgency. He realized now that it was a mistake.

The debriefing about a Resistance attack on one of their primary bases in the Outer Rim—the planet Attera Alpha—was turning into a shouting match amongst the other two general. Officer Talvin, who had relayed the details of the attack, was a bumbling mess who took far longer than necessary to explain what had happened. He stood in the corner now, cowering. Hux made a mental note to get him demoted. Talvin would be the third officer to be replaced in the position this month. 

"We cannot afford to lose Attera Bravo. We must pull back," General Delian Dray argued. 

"Attera Bravo is equipped with a dreadnought and _fifteen_ of our Resurgent-class Star Destroyers," General Yale Karsen said. "The Resistance numbers are small. We can fight back their forces tenfold."

General Dray took a deep breath through her nose. "I am well aware of Bravo's firepower, General. Just because we have the muscle doesn't mean we should flaunt it."

"Either we crush them, or they crush us," Karsen retorted.

"We are going through weapons and soldiers faster than we can replace them. We already owe funds to several of our weapons suppliers—"

"Enough," Hux growled. The two generals and the four officers present turned to look at the head of the table. Hux rubbed his temples. His head had been pounding for the last hour. He hadn't realized just how reliant he had become on caffeine until now. 

General Dray was right.  If it wasn't obvious before, Kylo Ren being the affluent son of the of a princess of Alderaan was transparent to Hux now. He was burning through their supplies—mostly firearms—like an unsated man went through whores in a Coruscantian nightclub. His need to find that girl, the Jedi, was insatiable. While they were successful in a few battles against the Resistance, most of the missions had been redundant. Ren did not understand strategy or saving strength. It was costing them not only money, but peace. At all times of day, the First Order was on the alert, braced for an attack or preparing to attack. It was unsustainable. It was madness.

"We retreat," Hux said. "For now. Bravo's invaluable resources are better kept hidden."

Hux didn't miss the smug look Dray threw Karsen. He might have enjoyed it another day, but today it just annoyed him. Was it him, or were the ceiling lights brighter than usual today? The white fluorescence seemed to be piercing right through his eyes and into his skull. 

Karsen squirmed in his seat and gave an uneasy chuckle. "General Hux, surely you don't think the First Order can't handle—"

"It doesn't matter what I or you  _think_ , Karsen," Hux said through gritted teeth. "Use your brain, not your brawn." Without waiting for a reply, Hux rose from his chair. "Dismissed." 

On the way out, the bumbling Talvin attempted to say something, but Hux cut him off without looking at him. "I'm demoting you from sergeant to corporal. Learn to deliver a report, for kriff's sake." 

Out in the hall, several stormtroopers bowed their heads and greeted him, but he paid them no mind. He headed straight for the lift. One floor below, he found the nearest refresher. Several were located on every floor in the  _Finalizer_. He didn't want to use the one on the floor he came from in case Karsen or one of the other officers from the meeting decided they needed to relieve themselves. He couldn't stand looking at their faces right now.

He pushed the door open harder than he meant to and it banged against the black-tiled wall of the refresher, making Hux wince. The sound pierced right through his forehead like a drill. He walked to the sink and hastily turned on the faucet. He cupped his hands, collecting the cool water, and splashed it onto his face. He gasped, the sensation of the cold against his burning face a relief, but it only lasted a moment. 

He splashed the water on his face again and again, until the strands of his hair that had fallen forward were dripping and dark from being saturated with water and the sleeves of his tunic were wet. Hux groaned, a painful spasm more painful than any that came before spreading through his skull like a fracture in a rock. He barely made it to the toilet bowl in one of the stalls before he was retching.

The measly contents of his stomach were last night's dinner, a salad of a nearby forested planet’s greens, and the multiple cups of water he had drank since. Every time he gagged, his head felt like it was splitting in half from the stress. Tears pooled in his eyes and ran down his face, which was already wet from sweat and the sink water. The only clear sensible thought that flitted through his head was that he would have traded this for a choking from the Supreme Leader. It was nowhere near as painful. 

After a while, he stopped gagging, his body finally satisfied that there was nothing left for him to regurgitate.  He sat leaning against the toilet bowl, panting, drenched in sweat from head to toe. The pain in his head subsided to a dull throb. 

An officer came in, and upon seeing him, bowed low. "General Hux. Forgive me." When the officer looked up again, he swallowed but tried to maintain a level expression, like he wasn't alarmed by the sight of his superior officer leaning over a toilet, looking sick and pathetic. "Do you need assistance?"

"Leave," Hux muttered. He was too exhausted to look at the officer. Instead he stared at the walls of the stall, black and void-like as space itself. 

"I'm sorry?" the officer said, taking a step closer for not having heard. 

"I said  _leave._ The room is occupied.” Hux coughed. The last half-hour’s exertion and the acid of the bile made his throat sore. He had meant the words to come out louder and sharper, but he was still trying to catch his breath.

The officer straightened and said, "Very well, General." With a sharp turn of his heeled boots, the man headed for the exit. 

Hux stared at the wall of the stall for a long while, thinking of everything and nothing. 

At first, Hux could not pin down the driving force behind Ren's crusade to hunt down the Resistance's Force-sensitive weapon. It was true enough that anyone capable of Ren's own sorcery was a threat, but as far as Hux could tell, she was not more powerful than Ren. She hadn't managed to kill him yet in the number of times they've battled. He wondered about her weaknesses and if she was privy to the same bouts of hysteria as the Supreme Leader. He had no way of knowing, but he figured it could be true. History could attest that these Force users were unstable. Were they not the cause for all the wars of the galaxy in the past few decades?

In the end, the true answer became apparent to him when the First Order put out its Most Wanted list on the HoloNet. He had seen it by mere accident. The communications department was managed by lower-ranking officers, and he barely got involved with them. He had been passing by their floor on his way to a meeting, but he was stopped short by a large projection on one of their wall screens.

 

Rey of Jakku

Species: Human

Age: 19

Height: Unknown

Weight: Unknown 

Reward: 5,000,000 credits

 

Hux scoffed. Did Ren find a planet where currency grew on trees? 

He realized, then, that he had never seen the girl's face. She was young, and impressively so, Hux had to admit, to be able to cause so much havoc. She was also attractive. Nothing extraordinary, but above average as far as conventional attractiveness for the human species went.  She was not looking at the cam, but somewhere beyond its scope. Her eyes were big and childlike, but her expression was serious, a frown etched between her eyebrows. She had freckled skin, a symptom of living in the desert.

Rey of Jakku, an enemy of the Order, who had survived Kylo Ren. 

No, that wasn't right. It clicked into place for him then, why Ren had been relentless these past few months in chasing her, and earlier than that, why he had abandoned the hunt for the droid and settled for her. She was a woman. Not only that, but a woman bearing a resemblance to Ren's mother, General Organa, when she was in her youth. 

Though it sickened him to think of it, Hux had a respect for science, and the dark hair and dark eyes and general complexion of this girl, paralleled with Leia Organa's, could not be dismissed as mere coincidence. Ren could be disappointingly predictable, for all his arbitrary tantrums. 

Hux knew the look of Leia Organa from older, grainer HoloNet archives. It had been sickeningly fascinating to see that her eyes were the same as the Supreme Leader's. It made Hux realize that though Ren may be of generous stature and afflicted with powers, he was human, still. He had come from this small woman a vulnerable babe. He didn't have her face, but he had the same eyes that gave everything away, that were too open, too honest. Hux knew, seconds before the Supreme Leader would throw him against a wall or stop the air passing through his throat, that he was going to do it. That was the difference between Ren and Vader. It is a pity he lost the mask. 

Once his breathing steadied, Hux pulled himself up, leaning against the walls of the stall for support as he did. His legs shook, but he managed to straighten himself, wipe the remaining bile from his mouth, and flush the toilet’s contents. He drank water from the sink, his mouth hot and parched. 

He was late for his next meeting, a debriefing on all the intel collected by spies within the Resistance. As he trudged out the door and began making his way to the upper floors of the _Finalizer_ to get to his chambers, he made a mental note to cancel the rest of his meetings for the day, save for the one in the evening with the Supreme Leader that could not be avoided. 

 _I know your weakness, Ren,_  Hux thought.  _She will be the death of you soon enough._

* * *

 

Hux was a man of few vices, so coffee in the evening was an indulgence he allowed himself. With plenty of water and an electrolyte drink brought to him by a med droid earlier, he more or less felt better by the time his meeting with the Supreme Leader came. He had eaten a small bowl of porridge to settle his stomach, too, but that nearly sent him running to the refresher again. Another atrocious mess hall food. He had to have a word with the chefs. Either they were lacing the food with something, despite Hux's taster appearing to be in good health, or they were cooking with their blasters and helmets instead of regular pots and pan. 

Kylo Ren did not face Hux when he came into the room. He did not flinch his head in Hux's direction when a junior officer announced his arrival. Hux felt refreshed with caffeine running in his bloodstream again. He wordlessly made his way over to Ren's side and looked where he was looking, onto the microscopic, smouldering remains of the First Order base on Attera Alpha. 

When the Supreme Leader said nothing, Hux cleared his throat. "It was the lesser of the two Attera bases. By the time they find Bravo, our ships will be long gone." 

Ren looked on, an impassive expression on his face. "I overrode the order."

Not for the first time, Hux clenched his fists behind his back at these exact words. As he could not do what Ren's own clenched fist could, he kept his voice steady. "Supreme Leader. I don't understand." 

"We'll engage in the Resistance's attack," Ren murmured. There was a glint in his eye as he spoke. "It will be well worth the risk." 

For a moment, red anger flashed through Hux's mind. He thought of Karsen and how he must have won an audience with the Supreme Leader and convinced him, one tall, well-muscled man to another, that this was the best course of action. 

He gritted his teeth and said, "Are we confident that that's the most economic course of action? Many of our best starships—" 

Ren's did look at Hux then, eyes burning. "You're dismissed, General." 

Hux did not need to be told twice. Ren's fingers were already twitching. 

"Very well, Supreme Leader." 

And he went. 

* * *

 

Later, in the lowest level of the  _Finalizer_ , Hux discovered the Supreme Leader possessed one admirable quality: ambition. 

She lay unconscious in her cell, head resting on one pale arm that dangled off the edge of the metal slab that was to be her bed. Cuts and bruises marked her face, arms, and legs, her delicate neck, though there were no grave injuries that he could see. 

 _Of course,_ Hux thought.  _Ren had been gentle._

She was young to be sure, and looked especially so while asleep, without that fierce gaze he saw on the hologram marring her expression. 

Ren had actually done it. They wasted more resources on her that she deserved, but here she was at last, the Resistance's deadliest weapon, crumpled in a heap behind the First Order's bars. Hux could step into her cell right now. He could hurt her, if he wished, and she would be none the wiser. He could even kill her with one clean shot of the blaster at his hip. These Force users— they were merely flesh.

**Author's Note:**

> The rating is M for now but may change to E (I don't know yet because I haven't written the rest). There will still be very sensitive content in future chapters and I will add the appropriate tags when the time comes.


End file.
